New York is endless: you can live here for a quarter of a century and find out only a fraction of what it has to offer.
And yet there are places where you simply cannot help but visit, even if some of them have long become lures for tourists: these are almost a century-old skyscrapers and ingenious modern architecture, and the world’s best museums, and eateries where New Yorkers grab for go bagels with scrambled eggs, and even a ferry that carries residents of the neighboring island to Manhattan.
There are also many of these must-see attractions in New York. Start with at least these fifteen.
This green slice of New York is perfect to get away from the city noise for a couple of hours, relax and unwind. To fully experience the solitude of this beautiful place, with nature, try signing up for a morning yoga class. A qualified instructor will show and guide you through the most scenic spots of this green area, so you are sure not to miss anything. As you walk through Central Park, you will exercise while enjoying the sunrise, refreshing breeze, and pleasant company of people.
You’ve probably taken the subway at some point, but did not even think about what stories and legends these walls of underground transport networks absorb into themselves. This unusual tour will help you learn a little more about the history of New York, take unique photographs, and plunge into the mysterious underworld of New York. The entire subway network of New York can feel endless, so you, under the guidance of a native of this city, set out to explore only a small part of it.
You will see the abandoned stations where the citizens have been waiting for their train for a long time. Also, travel through the gilded ghost stations with the chandeliers of the 1920s – and end the ride at one of the most modern stops in the entire system: Oculus at the World Trade Center Station.
The futuristic World Trade Center station, where several metro and PATH lines intersect, was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Its upper lobby with a shopping center is called Oculus and should resemble a bird that flies out of open palms, but in fact, it looks like a fish skeleton – however, like everything that Calatrava does.
There is always a queue to one of the best New York museums – and for good reason: there is such a collection in the bins that the permanent exhibition consists almost entirely of masterpieces (Van Gogh, Malevich, de Chirico, Wyeth – everything is here), and there are such exhibitions that I want to fly to America just because of them.
The best way to see the museum without pushing or rushing is to buy your ticket online to skip the line and schedule a visit in the middle of the week. The MoMA Design Store across the street sometimes has good gifts.
In 1846, the 86-meter spire of this Anglican church opposite Wall Street won it the title of the tallest structure not only in New York but in the entire United States for two decades. There is also a cemetery where, in particular, the inventor of the steamer Robert Fulton and the first US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who was killed in a duel, is buried.
There are hardly any bagels in town that are tastier than in Murray’s: with an omelet, dried tomatoes, and especially with a salad of smoked white fish (whitefish salad). The main thing is to decide everything in advance: those in the queue hate those who hesitate for a long time.
The symbol of modern America was gifted to the United States by the French people shortly after the end of the Civil War. The sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi sculpted a woman with a torch using his mother as a model, and then little-known engineer Gustave Eiffel designed a gigantic steel frame on which 300 thin copper sheets were connected.
The construction of a 46-meter, the two-hundred-ton structure was completed in 1886. The Statue of Liberty can be seen well from the ferry to Staten Island, but if you wish, you can go to its foot; it is important to remember that tickets for the observation deck inside the crown of the statue can only be purchased online.
The Met is in the same league as the Louvre and the Hermitage: it is a gigantic museum of everything in the world that has amassed an incredible amount of treasures from all over the world over one hundred and fifty years. You won’t be able to see the Met in one day – it’s not for nothing that its buildings stretch along Fifth Avenue for four blocks – but you can come here even every day: the ticket price here is “recommended”, so if finances are tight, you can pay nothing at all.
In addition to the grandiose collection of fine art from the Ancient World to the present day, there are, for example, such amazing things as totem poles of the Asmat people from New Guinea, Persian chess of the 12th century, the whole Egyptian temple of Isis from 15 BC. e. and a living room from a long-demolished house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A must-see for the Met is a rooftop cocktail overlooking Central Park.
Urban legend has it that one of the oldest residential buildings near Central Park was named “Dakota” because when it was completed in 1884, it was as far from the city center as the Dakota Indians. Among the skyscrapers, this northern palace looks mysterious – it’s not for nothing that Roman Polanski made it the setting for his mystical thriller Rosemary’s Baby. Among the inhabitants of “Dakota”, there were and are many famous people; in particular, John Lennon spent the last years of his life here, who was shot on the doorstep by Mark Chapman on December 8, 1980. In honor of the musician, Strawberry Fields in Central Park directly opposite the “Dakota”.
“18 miles of books” – new, old, antique, on any topic, in any format, at good prices, sometimes even cheaper than on the Internet. Remember that these days the airline’s overweight is being fought at exorbitant prices, and do not leave without a branded canvas bag.
This is one of the best free entertainment in New York. Every day, in any weather, giant orange ferries to Staten Island leave from the terminal next to Battery Park and arrive 25 minutes later on the shores of the city’s most sparse borough. From the board of the ferry, the Statue of Liberty, Governor’s Island, and, of course, the silhouette of Manhattan is perfectly visible.
A hundred years ago, the largest train station in the world was located here, and passengers laden with suitcases left here for Boston and Chicago. The modern building was built in 1913 after the tracks were electrified and underground. Today, the terminal serves as a terminus for commuter trains serving the northern suburbs of New York but looks better than ever.
Back in the 1980s, the windows and ceiling were black with soot: they thought it was from city soot, but it turned out to be from nicotine. Generations of New Yorkers were dating under the clock in the center of the main hall; the hall itself has been in the cinema so many times that it is impossible not to recognize it at first sight. There are restaurants in the basement, the best of which, Oyster Bar, is a contemporary of the station.
Ruthless steel magnate Henry Clay Frick had great taste and amassed a small but impeccable collection of paintings in his life, which is displayed in his lush Fifth Avenue mansion. There are Titian and Holbein, Vermeer and Van Eyck, Turner and Whistler, El Greco, and Goya – all in a dozen rooms that can be walked around in just one hour.
The sculptor Arturo di Modica secretly brought a bronze bull weighing three and a half tons to the Stock Exchange building on Christmas Day 1989 and left it as a gift to the residents of the city (a bull in stock market terminology symbolizes a bullish game). The sculpture was removed, but after a moment’s deliberation, it was returned to Bowling Green at the beginning of Broadway, where the bull appears to have settled forever. It is believed that touching his genitals is good for business. Superstition, of course, but look how polished they are.
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and General Grant entered the oldest Irish bar in New York without ceremony, and women began to be allowed here only after a big scandal in 1970. For one hundred and fifty years, the same sour signature ale has been bottled here, but who will argue with the presidents?
Like us on Facebook for more stories like this: